Kotaku has what they say is the letter sent to all the (now former) staff of THQ by CEO Brian Farrell and president Jason Rubin. This outlines how some of the company's assets have been divided, noting that some properties remain unsold, including their publishing operation, Vigil, and some other IPs. Here are the details provided in the letter, which remain unconfirmed at the moment:

Yesterday morning, we received a competing bid for the operating business, along with Clearlake's offer, and numerous offers for separate assets.

During an auction process that lasted over 22 hours, the final conclusion was that the separate-asset bids would net more than a single buyer for the majority of the company.

Shortly, we will, present the results to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which must concur with our assessment.

yuastnav wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:34:Why all the hate for Deep Silver?They publish the X games and those are great so it's not all automatically doom and gloom.

You may recall that X3 was published in Europe:

A) in a hideously unfinished state, to the extent that it was largely unplayable for most users until Egosoft rushed out a massive patch to fix all the issues. Egosoft later admitted that Deep Silver wanted them to release early to catch some holiday sales, even though Egosoft itself had said the game needed a few more months of polish.

B) with Starforce DRM, which led to a massive boycott campaign on Ego's own forum, and which undoubtedly hurt their sales of X3 (which were a bit disappointing.) Who was responsible for this decision? Oh, that's right, Deep Silver.

They deserve all the hate. They are a terrible piece of shit publisher who even today still insists on putting TAGES (which is sort of Starforce-Lite) on every game, including those already protected by Steam.

tl;dr: Fuck Deep Silver. It's a bad place for Volition to wind up. I half expect to see SR4 in stores in 3 months, and not even be worthy of being called an alpha prototype.

The Half Elf wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 16:19:Anyone wondering Kock Media is Deep Silver. REALLY wish Take 2 would have bought Volition, would have loved a Saints Row game with Rockstar Tech.

If take 2 had bought it, more than likely they would never have released anything of its IP. Its a competitor (however minor) to GTA, they would have just kept it unreleased. Kinda like EA buying up studios just to kill them off.

Paketep wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 16:46:I'm glad EA and Acti bought nothing, and Ubi's paws where far from Relic.

AdamK47 wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 20:14:I already knew Relic had the rights to develop using the Warhammer 40K license. It was Homeworld I was concered about. After some searching, it appears that Vivendi owns the Homeworld IP anyways.

I'm wrong. THQ does indeed have the Homeworld IP as is evident by todays news.

I like the concept of Homefront, kind of a Red Dawn-style game. It sounds like the implementation was pretty poor for the first game. Crytek has a good track record, so maybe they can do something interesting with it.

AdamK47 wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 18:04:I just read on Relicnews.com that Sega only bought the CoH IP. Hope that isn't true. That would mean no more Homeworld, ever.

This is wrong. He posts the bankruptcy filing as being the reasoning behind that, but that only shows CoH because that's what Relic owns; they don't own the 40k license so it's not listed, just the rights to make games under it. That's why everywhere else is listing it as part of the deal.

I already knew Relic had the rights to develop using the Warhammer 40K license. It was Homeworld I was concered about. After some searching, it appears that Vivendi owns the Homeworld IP anyways.

Really? 26 million is barely enough to fund a single AAA game these days and they got an entire development studio with some proven IP behind them. And it even comes with a game shipping soon in Company of Heroes 2. Sounds to me like they got a crazy good deal.

It comes with the Warhammer 40k license Relic has, and Sega already has the Warhammer Fantasy license. I'm guessing that's what they were looking for in the purchase, anyway.

/edit:

AdamK47 wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 18:04:I just read on Relicnews.com that Sega only bought the CoH IP. Hope that isn't true. That would mean no more Homeworld, ever.

This is wrong. He posts the bankruptcy filing as being the reasoning behind that, but that only shows CoH because that's what Relic owns; they don't own the 40k license so it's not listed, just the rights to make games under it. That's why everywhere else is listing it as part of the deal.

Really? 26 million is barely enough to fund a single AAA game these days and they got an entire development studio with some proven IP behind them. And it even comes with a game shipping soon in Company of Heroes 2. Sounds to me like they got a crazy good deal.

That's what happens in bankruptcy, you get everything for pennies on the dollar. Sega and the other buyers got smoking good deals, THQ debt holders didn't get much. I think the sale of all the stuff today barely covers one line of credit they had and barely makes a dent in the rest of their debt.

Congrats Brian Farrell, this disaster and all these people out of work is squarely the result of your years of incompetent leadership and unwillingness to step aside. I hope every time you walk into a store, there's a dusty uDraw box on a shelf to remind you of that.

Creston wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:07:I still can't fathom why people say the SR tech is better than the GTA tech. Obviously preferences vary, and people can like the SR implementation better than the GTA implementation, but driving in SR feels like you're playing one of the old Outrun cabinets, whereas driving in GTA feels like you're driving something with actual WEIGHT attached to it.

The GTA4 driving implementation was terrible - the cars feel like jelly the way they bounce around the road. They're quite fun to drive but it's not at all realistic. As for the SR3 implementation, I don't think that was great either but the core tech is hands down better.

Personally I think Mafia II is the best tech. The driving is a bit stiff but the visuals are hands down superior. It was only the limited scale of the game environment - and the lack of open world gameplay - that let it down. I'm much more looking forward to Mafia III, especially as it will be a next-gen title.

Really? 26 million is barely enough to fund a single AAA game these days and they got an entire development studio with some proven IP behind them. And it even comes with a game shipping soon in Company of Heroes 2. Sounds to me like they got a crazy good deal.

Prez wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:49:The preliminary sales list actually doesn't look terrible. Sega acquiring Relic is especially hopeful to me, since it was Sega that published part of the "Total War" series, which is hardcore strategy. That at least seems hopeful for a possible Homeworld 3.

This is exactly what I told a friend. Bethesda was the next runner up for Relic. Being owned by the same company that owns Creative Assembly is the best thing possible for the possibility of seeing a Homeworld 3.

Prez wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:49:The preliminary sales list actually doesn't look terrible. Sega acquiring Relic is especially hopeful to me, since it was Sega that published part of the "Total War" series, which is hardcore strategy. That at least seems hopeful for a possible Homeworld 3.

I just read on Relicnews.com that Sega only bought the CoH IP. Hope that isn't true. That would mean no more Homeworld, ever.

Well, Relic had moved away from good RTS games anyway. Their focus is on smaller squad based, very little to no building games, ie. DoW 2 and CoH 2. I think Homeworld was a dead series even if this sale didn't happen.

Prez wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:49:The preliminary sales list actually doesn't look terrible. Sega acquiring Relic is especially hopeful to me, since it was Sega that published part of the "Total War" series, which is hardcore strategy. That at least seems hopeful for a possible Homeworld 3.

I just read on Relicnews.com that Sega only bought the CoH IP. Hope that isn't true. That would mean no more Homeworld, ever.

Creston wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:04:Are Koch Media the guys behind Deep Silver? I can't remember. I think they are, in which case it's not great, since Deep Silver is one of the worst fucking publishers on the planet. Enjoy your TAGES DRM on your Steam games...

Hopefully Metro is far enough along that additional DRM would be a huge pain in the ass. I think it's supposed to ship fairly soon. I thought it was late January, but Steam just says early 2013.